The universality of grief makes it a popular subject for fiction, but by the same stroke it's challenging to approach with a fresh eye. Both humane and darkly comic, Peter Mendelsund's novel Weepers--the story of a group of professional mourners and the young man whose arrival casts their work in a dramatic new light--meets that standard.
Set in a dying small town in the hot, dusty American Southwest, Weepers's wry narrator is Ed Franklin, an aging and ailing cowboy poet who is part of the cohort of Local 302. Its members are paid to appear at funerals and weep copiously in order to inspire the grief of the true mourners.
One day, from out of state, a young man known only as "the kid" arrives with no belongings other than the suit on his back, and soon attaches himself to the ranks of this decidedly informal union. But what differentiates him from Dill, J-Man, Lemon, and the rest of the crew is his uncanny ability to evoke effusive displays of emotions from people, both at funerals and elsewhere, without shedding a single tear of his own, or seemingly even speaking a word. As he observes these events, Ed undergoes a crisis in his own practice, finding it increasingly difficult to summon up tears on demand.
Throughout, Mendelsund (What We See When We Read) raises often unanswerable questions, but though Weepers is the sort of novel that resists the easy consolation of a neat ending, that doesn't detract from its appeal. Reflective and atmospheric, it's a meaningful expression of our attempt to grapple with some of life's most profound mysteries. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer